(I am a picture framer. Generally my waiting list is around 4 – 6 weeks. It is the week before Christmas. A customer comes into the shop and I greet them; they start discussing the job and I make sure to mention I will not be able to complete any orders in time for Christmas; just to check before we go through all the detail.)

Customer: “No, that’s fine; I don’t need it for Christmas.”

(We carry on and it’s a fairly big job with lots of lots of different mouldings to be ordered. I tally it all up.)

(I’m a single mother of two young children. I’m also a full-time student with a full-time job, studying at night after my kids have gone to sleep. As a result, I get about an hour of sleep per night, often passed out over a book. My coworker, who is male, works part time and takes a half-load of courses at the same university. While I have worked at this shop for several years, my coworker has worked with us for just a few months. The shop owner is a woman in her 50s.)

Coworker: “I am so, so tired. I stayed up until one o’clock writing a paper.”

Shop Owner: “You poor thing! Go in the backroom and take a nap on the clock. [My Name] will cover for you.”

([Coworker] goes into the backroom. He reappears after two hours, after his shift is over, clocks out and leaves.)

Shop Owner: *to me* “Can you believe how much schoolwork they expect [Coworker] to do? It’s ridiculous. I’m scheduling him a regular nap during his shifts or that boy’ll work himself to death.”